Chris Casciano’s Place Name Here

A little while back I mentioned that I had reclaimed an old domain of mine and was looking for something to do with it. It took about two months to pull the free time together to design and build it, but I’ve just relaunched the site: Hike New Jersey.

The Secret Lives of Insects from Chris Casciano on Vimeo.

I spent Labor Day afternoon on a 7 or 8 mile hike of some local trails, exploring areas of the park I don’t normally get to. During the hike, while still in the South Orange area of the park, I passed a really busy tree. It was snack time for a wide variety of insects from ants to flys, bees and wasps.

Video shot with a Nikon D90 & Nikon 105mm 2.8 VR, though I shorted and recompressed it a little, its otherwise straight out of the camera.

View HD version of the video at Vimeo

View Slideshow

In the vein of events like 24 Hours of Flickr and Scott Kelby’s Worldwide Photo Walk a local photographer recently used Flickr and other local web sites to organize 48 Hours of Maplewood, an event where people in town were asked to go out on a nice summer weekend and document their suburban New Jersey neighborhood.

Each Monday night throughout the summer a local car club gets together at the Galloping Hill Inn hot dog stand to show off their cars and hang out with other car enthusiasts. These photos were taken last Monday night.

• See these photos on Flickr
• Galloping Hill Cruisers Official Site
• Info on other NJ Car Shows at njcarshow.com

What’s in the Hudson, Passaic, Hackensack and other local waterways that has people increasingly using them for recreation — or maybe the better question is what isn’t in the water. Boaters and kayakers enjoying these rivers some might be afraid of due to pollution or other fears aren’t exactly new, but this story of some local school kids building their own canoes and paddling down the Passaic caught my eye today, and caps off a few weeks of hearing or reading about the local rivers.

N.J. students in environment-education program ride self-built canoes on Passaic River [The Star-Ledger]

After another order of test prints arrived in the mail this afternoon [ordered Thursday, arrived today!] I’ve selected the images and papers I liked most and added a bunch of new prints to shop.placenamehere.com. With these additions the New Jersey landscapes and parks album is starting to fill out nicely, and hopefully has some familiar sights if you live in the norther half of the state.

Comment on this photo at Flickr

Comment on this photo at Flickr

I’ve just added two autumn prints from a 2007 trip to Watchung Reservation to the Landscapes of New Jersey gallery at shop.placenamehere.com.

As 2008 comes to a close many sites are doing year end wrap ups see previous post and here are two sites highlighting how New Jersey saw the year.

Comment on this photo at Flickr

New Storefront at Zenfolio

For a long time I’ve just looked at my photographs as something to for myself and as an excuse to get out of the house and into the outdoors. Maybe I’d share some of the images on Flickr or print something for a family member or friend but nothing more. No, I’m not looking to go pro or anything, and I don’t think I’m Ansel Adams either, but its time to do a little more with my hobby [and maybe pay for some of my gear in the process].

So just in time [barely] for the holiday gift season I’ve launched Chris Casciano Photography.

Comment on this photo at Flickr

Comment on this photo at Flickr

I’m usually not one to enter photo contests and other events, but the Great Destinations NJ book project was interesting enough and the rights grab wasn’t too bad so I’ve uploaded some images. to the project.

Its sort of an Everywhere — or JPG — style book and DVD project showcasing the diversity of the Garden State.

There’s now 4 days left to contribute by uploading photos of New Jersey or voting on your favorites. So head on over. You can start by voting on my photo contributions.

Last Friday, Flickr held its second 24 hours of Flickr event where it asked photographers to take a photo sometime in the 24 hours that made up August 8th, 2008 and contribute to a giant pool of images from around the world.

Above is my humble contribution, taken late friday during a break on my regular bike route at Verona Park, in Verona NJ.

view more photos and comment at flickr

comment on this photo at flickr

comment on this photo at flickr

comment on this photo at flickr

More on Flickr

I saw the first signs of something being wrong from my seat on a NJ Transit train into Hoboken. Though I did make it to that stop, by the time I did they had shut down all the train service and other public transportation both in to Manhattan and out of Hoboken.

Gallery of photos from the shores of the Hudson as I was stranded for the day.

Due to rain last night some town had postponed their 4th of July fireworks. Millburn, NJ was one of them

The above screenshot of a page from The Jersey Journal shows one of the most annoying web advertising I’ve come across in some time. Whether on purpose, or due to some insane twist of [random] fate the page in question displayed the same auto-playing video ad with audio in two ad spots on the page. Due to page load being what it is the audio was staggered by half a second or so making the unexpected audio even more obnoxious. Particularly as it was loaded in a background tab so I didn’t know where the sound was coming from at first.

The page also gets bonus points for displaying ads for police recruitment on a story about a highly decorated cop getting arrested.

Aside from the typical case of the blues that follows a few days without sun I wasn’t hit by the flooding rains the latest storms in the area. But many areas around me were, and new style media and news site launched a few months ago by some staff members at the Star-Ledger, TV Jersey has gathered up a number of videos [mostly from youtube ] from flooded areas around the state.

[Warning: The following post is not safe for Molly.]

Picking my head up from a few projects to pimp my latest flickr postings… My South Mountain Reservation Photo Set is about to hit 80 photos. All taken during my various strolls around the area including these from this past Saturday: